T-Mobile My Faves and the iPhone

Yesterday, I discussed my theory of operation for My Faves and the excellent Family 4-Pack promotion. I believe the My Faves numbers are categorized as free calls by the T-Mobile billing system, not the phone. The reason you need a phone with the My Faves application, is that when you add or modify a My Faves number, it has to be activated by the application. The My Faves applications does this with no charge SMS messages. If you use the web site to manage your My Faves numbers and you don't have an active phone with the My Faves application, the phone number stays in a pending state. Once the application on the phone validates the number, it becomes an active My Faves number and you can switch phones.

I tried this last night. I updated and activated a phone number with the My Faves application on my AT&T Tilt. I then switched my SIM card over to my iPhone and placed a called. This morning I checked my account and the call shows up a My Faves call (V).

Now my only question is whether the My Faves numbers need to refreshed periodically. I will have to test over my next billing cycle. And obviously at this point I can't manage My Faves numbers using the iPhone.

Disclaimer: Since I have no internal understanding of how My Faves work and this is just a theory, if you choose to try this you need to validate that it works by monitoring your account on the T-Mobile web site. I am not responsible for any charges on your T-Mobile account.

Comments

I had the same theory except that i didnt have any unlocked phones i could try this on..........so tell me, did it work? that is, did u verify that you dont need to refresh your myfaves every month? did u find out if the system eventually do anything to your myfaves?....plz let me know i been dying to know!!!

Posted by: Jerry | July 31, 2008 at 03:40 PM

Once I setup/validated My Faves on a My Faves compatible phone and switched my SIM card to a non My Faves phone, the 5 numbers I had setup were billed as My Faves. As long as I did not change them they worked on the new phone without needing a monthly refresh. However, changing any one of them requires going back to a My Faves phone to refresh the account.

Posted by: Stephen Skarlatos | July 31, 2008 at 03:45 PM

awesome!!! what about other features? i have the unlimited data plan and i know that the new iphone now runs in a better (faster) network, so will using the iphone give me the same speed as the ATT network?

Posted by: Jerry | July 31, 2008 at 03:51 PM

Unfortunately, T-Mobile USA and AT&T are using different frequencies for 3G. This means that the iPhone 3G cannot use 3G on T-Mobile USA.

If you can SIM unlock an iPhone 3G (which is currently very difficult) and want to run it on T-Mobile USA you would be relegated to the slower EDGE speed.

Posted by: Stephen Skarlatos | July 31, 2008 at 05:35 PM

A bit disappointing but i guess i can live with it.....thanks for the help

Posted by: Jerry | August 01, 2008 at 04:33 PM